Monthly Archives: February 2013

I’ve been thinking a lot about creativity lately, especially in an educational context. Today, while I was sitting in my car waiting for Lillia to come out of ballet class, I happened to catch part of NPR’s TED Radio Hour. This week’s episode, called “Building a Better Classroom,” featured Sir Ken Robinson, a renowned author and speaker who focuses on education, creativity, and innovation. Although his talks are several years old, I had never heard them before, and I was profoundly moved by some of the things he said about our public education system and its relationship to individual creativity and intelligence.

Despite my overall confidence in the success of our homeschooling experience, I do occasionally question my decision to reject the current educational paradigm, in favor of something different and unknown. Hearing Ken Robinson’s criticisms of a system that I feel is more harmful than beneficial to my child was both reassuring and enlightening. I will not go into all of the details of his talks (there are links to both of them at the end of this post), but I will highlight some of the points that really struck me as important to remember.

In his first TED Talk, in 2006, Ken Robinson discussed our educational system’s obsession with always having the right answer. This is clearly visible in the high value we place on test scores, from the standardized tests our children take in elementary school, to the SAT’s they take to get into college. The focus on always being “right,” to the exclusion of all other possibilities, leaves no room for experimentation and innovation. By the time our children are teenagers the creativity has been thoroughly taught out of them. But, there is much to gain from being wrong, or at least from being willing to be wrong. Ken Robinson says,

What we do know is, if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original…And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this, by the way. We stigmatize mistakes. And we’re now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities. Picasso once said this — he said that all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. I believe this passionately, that we don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out if it.

I see this in myself, as I am certainly a product of this broken educational system. And, it always becomes a matter of self-blame because our culture won’t admit that the formula is wrong. Maybe instead of failing miserably at Algebra, I could have been pursuing things that really interested me, like literature, history, music, and art. Our educational system is based on the assumption that everyone will go to college, and that we need to standardize everyone’s education to fit that ultimate goal. There is little to be gained by this method, and it mostly results in a lot of square pegs in round holes. Instead of creating an atmosphere where individuals can follow their own passions, desires, and talents — their own “paths” — we try to force everyone to travel the same road. It’s really no mystery why there are so many unhappy and unfulfilled adults. In order to change this, Ken Robinson says, we have to shift away from an educational model based on mechanization, and focus on educating our children as individual human beings. He says,

So I think we have to change metaphors. We have to go from what is essentially an industrial model of education, a manufacturing model, which is based on linearity and conformity and batching people. We have to move to a model that is based more on principles of agriculture. We have to recognize that human flourishing is not a mechanical process; it’s an organic process. And you cannot predict the outcome of human development. All you can do, like a farmer, is create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish.

In closing, I want to share a poem by W.B. Yeats, which Ken Robinson quoted at the end of his second TED Talk:

HAD I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Let us always remember, as educators and parents, to tread softly on the dreams that are spread out before us.

This week was vacation week in our district, but we chose to homeschool because I didn’t feel we really needed a break right now, and Lillia had things she wanted to do…

Lillia’s Adventures

Although this was supposed to be our last week studying Ancient Egypt, Lillia has requested an additional week in order to finish up Gods and Pharaohs. I also found a really great DVD set at the library that she seems to really enjoy. In fact, she always wants to watch extra episodes. It’s called “Ancient Egypt Unearthed,” featuring Dr. Zahi Hawass, and you can buy it on Amazon for only $11.98. I think that’s a spectacularly good deal for the vast amount of information it contains (you can also rent it from Netflix). Dr. Hawass may be a controversial character, but he has accomplished quite a lot in his career and has done much for the study of Egyptology. Here is a list of episodes included on the discs, in case anyone is curious or wants to know for planning purposes:Disc One
Episode 1, “Chaos and Kings”
Episode 2, “Pyramid: The Resurrection Machine”
Episode 3, “Age of Gold”
Episode 4, “Deities and Demons”
Episode 5, “Mummies: Into the Afterlife”Disc Two
Episode 6, “Egypt’s Ten Greatest Discoveries”
Episode 7, “Secrets of Egypt’s Lost Queen”
Episode 8, “Why Ancient Egypt Fell”
Episode 9, “Women Pharaohs”

I haven’t written much about our cursive handwriting program in weeks, mostly because Lillia has just been plugging away at it and there hasn’t been much drama. But, I just have to share her work from this past week. When she wants to, she can write beautifully. I know I say this a lot, but I am so proud of her. (The doodles are a bonus!)

We received Life of Fred: Farming and have made our way through chapter four already. As Fred‘s author announced in the second chapter, we are now officially done “learning” addition. There will still be lots of addition practice, but there will be no more direct lessons about it. This seems like a milestone of some kind and I am so excited to see what is coming next! In the meantime, I gathered some skip counting “songs” from several sources so that Lillia and I can start working on the multiplication tables. I think that skip counting will help her to understand the larger theory behind multiplication (and give her a mnemonic device to use if she forgets the answer). She already knows the 1’s, 2’s, 5’s and 10’s, so we’ll be starting with the 3’s (click here for a PDF of all the songs I plan to use):

We’re going to the library this afternoon because Lillia is dying to read the last book in the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan. Lillia reads way above grade level so it can be difficult to find books that are challenging to read but still appropriate, content-wise. She also just finished up the Kane Chronicles, a series built around Egyptian mythology by the same author. If you have an above-grade level reader, I highly recommend any of Rick Riordan’s books for young adults.

Zane’s Adventures

Because he’s so interested in cooking I’ve been teaching Zane how to make breakfast. Here he is stirring his oatmeal.

And, making my coffee 🙂

He even helped Lillia make scrambled eggs!

Mama’s Adventures

I thought it might be nice to include my own experiences as an educator in my weekly update. After all, I’m learning, too!

When I met with the homeschooling moms last week I expressed to them how difficult the first half of the year had been for us. With a gentle, yet knowing, smile one of them said to me, “Well, you needed to decompress.” Ah ha! So there is a word for the hell (pardon my language) that was our first semester! Though I try to refrain from preaching on this blog, I’m going to pass on some words of advice that I wish I had gotten back in the summer when I was up to my ears in curriculum materials and trying to plan out the most perfect homeschool year ever — if you are a new homeschooler coming from a formal school setting, you need to set aside at least a couple of months to “decompress.”

You won’t know what I’m talking about until it happens. You can plan things but you need to know that most of what you plan won’t happen, and you need to be okay with that. You can ignore this advice and plow ahead, and you will find that it will be an uphill battle all the way. But, if you take the opportunity to slow down and just be with your child, you will be sparing yourself a lot of frustration, heartache, and doubt. One day you will discover that your child, who couldn’t get through 10 minutes of homeschooling at first, will be sailing through her work like an old pro. For us this day has finally come, and I am so, so proud of Lillia. I give this advice from the very bottom of my heart, and I hope that my words will be meaningful and helpful to someone else.

I hope you all had a good week, whether you were educating or vacationing…or both 🙂

Twenty weeks? Is that really possible? What an interesting journey this has been so far. This week felt very busy to me. I feel like we were out of the house quite a bit, and I’m trying to figure out how best to organize this post to give an accurate picture of how our week went. I guess the best place to start would be…

Lillia’s Adventures

Note: I was recently informed that too many of my photos feature the back of Lillia’s head. This week I did my very best to get as many shots as I could of her beautiful face 🙂

This week started off with…snow! Lillia loves playing in the snow, and outdoor time will always take precedence over academics around here. It took her a couple of days to carve out this snow fort, but she was very proud of herself when she was done.

Despite the lure of the outdoors, we were able to get a lot done, academically, thanks to the new software I started using (blogged about here). We are in our second-to-last week of our Ancient Egypt unit, and this week we learned about the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb. What a wonderful experience that must have been for Howard Carter! Given the considerable amount of treasure contained in Tut’s burial tomb, despite its hastily thrown together nature, we must assume that some of the greater and more long-lived pharaohs were buried with an astounding amount of wealth. It really is a pity that most of the tombs were robbed of their treasures, most likely not long after the pharaoh’s death, and that the best efforts of the tomb architects to deter thieves were not successful. Still, Tut’s tomb does give us a glimpse of the power, the wealth, and the significance of the pharaohs in their own time. Next week Lillia told me she would like to learn more about the gods and goddesses, and their religious significance, in Ancient Egypt. So, I am on the hunt for a good documentary that will give a nice overview of the Ancient Egyptian deities. I did a quick search on YouTube, but was fairly disappointed at the amount of rubbish that came up when I typed in “egyptian mythology.” If I find anything useful, I will post it here.

We were waiting for the Life of Fred: Farming to arrive so we didn’t do much with math, although we did work with division a bit when we were trying to figure out how best to break up the valentines that Lillia needed to make. She was invited to exchange valentines with the third grade at our local public school (which she attended for 1st and 2nd grade, and still attends twice a week for P.E. and Art). This year we kept the process fairly simple because we had 36 kids to make cards for, plus a few teachers, and we spread the workload over several days. I find this is the best way to tackle large jobs that tend to overwhelm Lillia.

I had prepared Lillia for the possibility that she might not get any valentines because she is not on the class rosters. I was completely shocked and very touched when she showed me that both classes had prepared a bag full of valentines for her! Unlike families that homeschool from the start, when we made the decision to keep Lillia home we also made the decision to leave the school that had been our educational and social community for two years. I sometimes feel a little guilty about that, and our ties to the wider community are weaker because we are not involved with the school system in the traditional way. However, this gesture of goodwill and kindness made me feel less like an outsider, and I am very appreciative of their efforts to include Lillia.

And, lastly, we did finally attend our local homeschooling group meet-up at the library. It was a small group this week, but that was really nice because we were able to get comfortable and acquainted without being overwhelmed by the dynamics of a large group. At first Lillia and Zane kind of did their own thing and colored quietly at one of the tables.

After about twenty minutes the kids all discovered each other and started playing tag, which eventually became “hound dog pack.” Lillia was the oldest and, given the right ingredients, she is a natural leader. She kept all the hounds on task for at least 45 minutes, and it is so good for kids to play with a mixed age group (that’s what real socialization is about!). I think both kids actually had a good time, and we’ll definitely be going back. It was also nice for me to have other homeschooling parents to talk to in person. It certainly makes me feel less isolated.

Zane’s Adventures

This week Zane helped us make valentines. I was so impressed with his fine motor skills — he actually used the glue stick appropriately!

He played with the shape sorter (with help from his big sister). He can put all the shapes into the correct holes, but he has a hard time figuring out which side to use. I know he will master it soon.

He did some serious plumbing in his kitchen.

He had a great time building block towers with Nanny (my mother). He can build a very small tower of his own, but he likes knocking them over more than he likes building them.

He helped Oliver keep an eye on the neighborhood cats.

And, he was really excited to get this awesome cupboard for his kitchen area from one of my daughter’s friends. The work surface is a bit high, but he will grow into it. And, it’s great for storing all of his tools, dishes, and play food.

I don’t usually post mid-week, but I have recently started using some new software that has made my job as a home educator (and mom) a lot easier and I wanted to share them with you.

Note: I did not receive these products for free and I was not asked to write reviews of them.

I have a love/hate relationship with computers and the internet, especially when it comes to my children. As a former Waldorf parent, I cringe when I tell you that we allow our nine-year old to use the computer two hours a day. I know that’s sacrilege in some educational/parenting communities, but here’s the thing: I honestly believe that she benefits from it. She has taught herself Photoshop and uses it to make cards for her friends and drawings with her dad’s Wacom tablet. She’s writing a story using Microsoft Word. And, yes, she does have internet access, but we closely monitor what she does, and where she goes, online.

That having been said, it can sometimes be a huge struggle to limit the amount of time she spends on the computer. We tried the honor system (big failure), using a timer (the timer mysteriously broke), and using Microsoft’s parental controls (too restricting). The truth is that nagging does work, but I do enough nagging and I don’t have the time or the energy to be the internet police. Enter: ComputerTime.

ComputerTime does everything I want it to do. I can set both the times of day she can log on (ex: from 9am-7pm), and the total hours for the day, week, or even month that she has access to the computer and/or the internet. This allows me to give her computer time to work on her story, without giving her access to the internet. ComputerTime also has a feature that allows you to print out tokens to give your child bonus computer or internet time for doing things like helping around the house or doing extra chores.

We are still using the trial version, but we will definitely be buying this software. It has saved my sanity, and I feel good about setting limits that I know we can meet fairly and consistently.

When I started planning my curriculum for this school year (way back in June 2012!), I was using Microsoft Word to create lesson plans and book lists, and pretty much every kind of document that I wanted to have available going forward. By nature I’m fairly scatterbrained. Okay very scatterbrained. I have awesome, big, super cool ideas and the energy to make them happen! But, I’m really bad at figuring out how to make them happen. I just can’t seem to visualize the steps needed to see a project from big idea through to completion.

I’ve recently learned that I can outsource this skill to a piece of software called Homeschool Tracker. Seriously, I think I heard the heavens open up and the angels singing when I realized just how much this software was going to help me. Because this year is already 2/3 of the way over, I am using the rest of the time to experiment with Homeschool Tracker, so that I can be a proficient user by the time I am planning for next year (I can’t wait!).

The thing I love most about this software is its library feature. For example, I can find a book I want to use on Amazon, or anywhere else, and enter the ISBN into my online library. This will give me a file for the book (including a thumbnail of the cover), which then makes it a “resource.”

Once a resource is created, it can be used to create lesson plans. A resource can then be divided up into lessons using the lesson plan feature, and assigned to specific days. I prefer to use the scheduler feature to do this, but you also have the flexibility to click and drag items in the agenda if you need to reschedule.

From here you can create agendas and reports, like Daily Task Lists (which are really handy for helping us stay on track with our readings).

So, there you have it: technology working for the good of humanity. I will be sure to post updates about new features I discover, or let you know if these tools stop being helpful.

Do you use any software to help you as an educator/parent/human being? Please share!

Here I am again with a two-week combo post. Ideally, I would really like to get back to my weekly updating schedule, but I am also in school (as of last month) and I find that most of my free time is being co-opted by schoolwork, mostly reading. So, I can’t promise that I will always be on time, but I am going to try and post every week, even if it’s just a short summary. Without further ado…

Lillia’s Adventures

For the past two weeks we have been working our way through David Macaulay’s book, Pyramid. Macaulay, an illustrator and professor of art at the Rhode Island School of Design, traveled to Egypt to study the landscape and the pyramids in preparation for the writing of his wonderful book. Pyramid is a fictional story based on the real-life construction of a large pyramid on the Giza plateau. It was so fascinating to learn how the Ancient Egyptians were able to plan and carry out building on such a large scale. Their innovation and creativity in solving some difficult problems (such as how to move very, very heavy blocks of stone) is truly inspiring. The dedication of the workers to their task is also quite remarkable. We also watched an old PBS documentary about the pyramids, hosted by Macaulay himself, which you can watch for free on YouTube.

Last week, in Jacob’s Ladder, we read “The Dog and His Reflection,” and then discussed the consequences and implications of his actions. We talked about the “price” that the dog paid for his greed, and made a chart of the different qualities that the dog possessed, attributing both positive and negative aspects to each one. This week we read “The Fisherman and His Wife” and then discussed the consequences of both the wife’s demands and the husband’s willingness to act on them.

Lillia also started to work on a new “book,” based on the Warriors series by Erin Hunter. She’s been diligently typing away during her free time. I highly recommend allowing children to use the computer or a word processor for writing exercises or creative writing, especially if they are resistant writers. We created this work space for Lillia in her closet (which I blogged about elsewhere). Now she has a designated area to do independent work, and some privacy from grabbing hands (little brothers).

This week we finished Life of Fred: Edgewood, and I am scrambling to order the next book for the coming week. Thankfully, the supplier ships very promptly. This wasn’t my favorite book in the Life of Fred series. The educational content was superb but I felt that the plot of the story was a bit contrived and rambling. This is not a huge criticism, but just something I noticed. Lillia can now add five digit numbers together, and she really enjoys it. When asked to add 83,640 to 47,257, she exclaimed, “I love extreme math problems!” Edgewood also dealt extensively with percent and averages. I feel that the exercises are getting more difficult, and I often have to talk Lillia through them. But, I have no complaints since that is why we are using this curriculum!

There is a new homeschooling group in Walpole, which meets at the library on Thursdays. I’m interested in going, but also hesitant. We’re kind of a self-contained unit, and I’m a major introvert (it takes a chisel to get me out of the house). Also, Lillia gets plenty of socialization going to the school twice a week, dance classes twice a week, and playdates at least once a week. Still, maybe it would be nice to network a bit. Do any of you take part in homeschooling groups or co-ops? Do your kids enjoy it, or is it more for you (the educator)? I’d love to hear about your experiences.

Zane’s Adventures

Last week Zane was really interested in cleaning…

…everything.

And, he got a haircut!

This week Zane has been building forts,

assisting with closet renovations,

and, nurturing this little baby doll (these “Magic Nursery” dolls were mine as a kid, so they’re at least 20 years old but in remarkably good shape for their age).